Final thoughts

Last excerpt from my journal entry for my experience in Waveland MS:

All in all, the week went well. It was a multifaceted experience for me since I was dealing with a lot of spiritual and emotional stuff which attempted to affect my duties--with some success, but with some failure too. Am I glad I led the team? I'm glad I was able to bring 7 others, many first timers to the mission field, to experience life beyond MN. I haven't done a debrief yet, so I don't know what their experience was like--I hope it was positive. One team member asked if I was happy I came--my response was "I'm glad to have brought you all here." I don't have a sense of happiness about going to Waveland this year--probably because of what I was going through. It was nice to see a few people from last year and to help out Virginio. Would I have had to come to Waveland to get the same experience? Probably not specific to Waveland, but I think had I tried to do this at home in MN, I would have had other things come up distracting me from the experience. So, yes--physically leaving MN was a necessity to have this experience.

I did have an interesting conversation with the CLC director and the drivers for MDR as I was getting ready to pack up and shower. He asked me to pray about joining the volunteer staff in Waveland on a longer term position as project manager. I told him I'd think about it and went into a little bit of what I went through with being a leader for this trip as well as the connections I have in MN. I didn't get into the personal relationship I have, but I did say that monetarily wise, without God creating the opportunities, I wouldn't be able to do a long term venture as I have a mortgage and things of that sort. It is an interesting proposition though. Theorizing--would I do it if I didn't have anything preventing me from doing so? Perhaps. I believe my calling is to do missionary work, but for what length of time or where--I don't know. If I were unattached, financially stable--I guess I probably would; however, I am not any of those things. I'm involved with a beautiful woman that God has brought into my life and I believe that this is a priority in my life to develop this relationship fully more than what it is now. My bank account is rather small and I owe plenty to others. It is my aspiration that God would guide me and my family in this direction at some point in our lives--but for the time being, I don't think that I could do that now.

Lastly, it is nice to be able to talk about God without feeling shadowed by fear or any of the other crap I had been feeling. Perhaps my threat to the enemy has subsided and the target has been removed from my back?? If that's true, I welcome the peace and normalcy that I had prior to leading this trip; but I will miss the attention of the evil one for me to do good in this world.